Hi, I'm new here but I hope you can help me. I have been using PSP 7 for years. All of a sudden, it has started to get really slow/hang. For example, when I pick ANY tool, instead of just popping up so I can use it, I have to wait and wait and wait and then it works. Then I have to wait some more before I can use another tool, etc. This is very annoying to say the least.

I uninstalled and reinstalled. I've cleared cache, I've de-fragged, I've done a disk check, etc. etc. ect. Nothing has fixed it and I have NEVER had this problem. I have no idea what would have caused it all of a sudden.

Any ideas before I go insane? Thank you!

I could be so many things. Even though you've reinstalled already, would you mind trying once more using these instructions?
Download Corel's ZapPS utility from ftp://ftp.corel.com/pub/PaintShopPro/X/zapps.exe. Run it, select PSP 7 as the product, choose all four actions from the right hand side and click the "Begin" button. It might take a few minutes with nothing much seeming to happen, but you should see a confirmation box when it's finished.
Then do a Windows Disk Cleanup. You'll find the cleanup utility in the Start Menu bu navigating to All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Cleanup. Run it for the C: drive, and when it reaches the point where it allows you to choose what to clean up, choose everything except "Compress Old Files". (Mostly because compressing old files makes Disk Cleanup take a lot longer to run. But if you think that part of your problem might be that the hard drive is too full, you could include the  "Compress Old Files" option to reclaim quite a lot of space).
After that, restart you computer and reinstall PSP 7. Make sure you apply any patches needed to get it up to version 7.04. Links for the PSP 7.04 patches are here.

See if that fixes things. If it doesn't let us know. To try and narrow things down it would be useful to know the version of Windows that you're using, as well as the amount of memory that you computer has installed, and the amount of free space you have on your C: drive.

Thanks, I will try that in the AM and let you know. If it doesn't work *crosses fingers* I will post all that other info, thanks so much for the response!

Okay, I did all that and guess what... didn't fix the problem. Sigh...

I run Windows XP Pro SP 2
4 Gig RAM
104 GB HD space free

Any other thoughts?

Let's try and narrow it down. Unfortunately this is the sort of thing that is much easier and quicker to do while sitting in front of the misbehaving computer. Is there any particular operation in PSP 7 that seems to cause the problem, or is it just a general sluggishness?

Because the problem has started quite suddenly, it must be the result of something changing on your computer. It could be an update to existing software (including a hardware driver). It could be something that has been newly installed that either conflicts with PSP 7, or runs all the time and hogs resources (most likely a security program... you don't happen to use Norton 360?). It could be that your computer has fallen victim to some sort of malware.
It would be handy if you could remember installing, uninstalling, deleting or updating anything at about the time the problem started. (Or if you ran a registry cleaner... dangerous things that cause far more problems than they cure).

To see if something is hogging the processor, while running PSP 7, open the Windows Task Manager... either press Ctrl + Alt + Del, or right click on the task bar and select "Task Manager". Look on the "Performance" tab.
At the top you will see the CPU usage section where there will be one or more graphs of CPU usage history (there will be one graph per processor core). With PSP 7 just idling along, the graph(s) should be sitting at or close to zero, with only small, occasional, blips of activity. If one or more cores is showing constant activity, swap to the "Processes" tab. Click twice on the heading of the CPU column... where it says "CPU". This will sort the list of running processes so that those using the most CPU cycles will be at the top of the list. You should see System Idle Process using something like 99% of the processor. No other process should use  much at all, and then only for a split second. If anything is using a large amount of resources, what is the name of the process?
I've recently found that one version of Firefox 3.5 had a bug that caused it to hog resources, but this appears to be fixed in the latest 3.5.5 version.

It wouldn't hurt to use your anti-virus software to do a full virus scan, and also do a malware scan. I'd recommend the free version of Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware (http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam.php) for this.

The only thing that causes the problem is when I use the tools. Which I use a lot. So anytime I try and do text, shapes, magic wand, etc. There is a long pause between when I click the tool and when it finally is ready to be used. Sometimes I see something pop up that says its processing cache, sometimes it will temp hang and I'll see a blip of scattered images all over (hard to explain). I see the hour glass a lot. The shape tool isn't actually showwing the shape I make anymore until I stop dragging the mouse.

I do a complete virus scan every week, so far nothing. I turned off my interenet security software to see if that was the conflict and that is not it. I did have some major problems with IE being very slow and found it was the Java so I disabled that the other day. I'm trying to think of other changes. Obviously Microsoft updates weekly. Other than those updates and disabling Java in IE I haven't changed anything else recently.

I checked the processes like you mentioned, but there was nothing else taking up resources.

An outside chance...  Go to System Properties  (right click on the My Computer icon, choose Properties) > Advanced tab > Performance Panel, and click on the Settings button.  First select "Adjust for best performance" and "OK" out of there; see if that makes a difference with PSP.  If it does, go back to System Properties and select "Custom"; the two "Fade or slide" (menus & tooltips) options have a history of mischief with PSP, especially older versions, so do not check their boxes. But you probably can restore whatever other custom settings you had been using.

That didn't work either. I can literally see PSP "thinking" when I click a tool button. Whenever I access shapes I get that "validating shapes" message. When I click text the color pallette blinks a few times. This is very strange.

I had a thought. It is also very slow to start up now. Is it possible to just clear the cache for PSP itself? I would think with the zapp program that it would be cleared but I'm at a loss.

Quoted from PMcOuntry

I had a thought. It is also very slow to start up now. .

Usually, when PSP takes a long time to load itself into memory, the culprits are things like a lot of brushes, preset shapes, plugins, picture tubes, etc.  If you have accumulated a lot of these, I suggest you remove the path to them in Files > General Program Preferences (or wherever it is in PSP7 that you tell PSP where to look for plugins, etc); then PSP will not be trying to load all those things into memory and should start up more quickly (if things go as they're supposed to).  At the very least, since you mentioned the "validating shapes" message, I'd remove the present shapes from where PSP looks for them and see what happens.  I mean: move the shapes to a new folder in My Documents, so that you still have them, but make it impossible for PSP to try to validate them or load them, or whatever it's taking so long to do to them.  It's remotely possible that one or more of them has been corrupted and has thereby become something that ties PSP up when it tries to start.

Another thing to try is to have PSP running, and then open Task Manager (Performance view), and adjust the programs on your monitor so that you can see both at once (i.e., reduce the main PSP window to let Task Manager have some room).  Then use the tools that have been causing problems, and see what Task Manager shows as happening to your system.  If nothing else, this is useful information to relay to Tim when he sees these recent posts.

Also, how many processes do you have running altogether?

Quoted from PMcOuntry

Is it possible to just clear the cache for PSP itself? I would think with the zapp program that it would be cleared but I'm at a loss.

I don't know; Tim does, and he'll have to address this one. I would think that if you've just used Zapp to uninstall PSP and then you've reinstalled it, there shouldn't be anything in the cache when you first start it up.

I use just basic PSP with nothing added. I don't add shapes, etc. since I don't need them. Also, every tool is the problem, I just use the shapes and text the most. However, line draw, magic wand, etc. all do the same thing. It's just the shapes that cause that box to pop up and say "validating shapes cache." I will try and remove them and see what it does.

Another bit of maintenance that might be helpful to perform (if you haven't already done so) is to empty the recycle bin and get rid of your TMP files.

Yes, I did both those things more than once.

Update: I ran CCleaner, Malware (1 posted above), and Virus Scan. Didn't help.  

It also starts slower now and is frequently giving me problems when I try and type text. For example, which I try and type C it will get rid of the color palette instead, even though I am in the text box. I am going crazy here!

Have you tried shutting off your computer and going and having a cup of coffee and then return.  Some of our viewer say that after a couple of hours of work with PSP the program starts getting a little weird and the only solution they found was to shut down completely for a short while and then restart.

I turn off my computer every night and I do shut down PSP for long periods of time between uses.  

M T is referring to PSP's (and other graphics and audio editors') memory-management limitations.  It does not detect free memory that the OS has available, and it behaves as if there were not enough RAM for it to run efficiently.  There are two things to try, still, in order to learn what is actually happening.  One: reboot your computer after you've used PSP for an hour, and do it every hour, and if that makes a difference then the mismanagement of memory is almost certain.  Two:  watch what Task Manager shows (I suggested this above) when the problems are occurring; find out what the computer is doing when PSP is having fits about using tools.

OK will do both today and let you know the outcome, thanks again for everyone's help and input.

OK I didn't get a chance to do the use 1 hour and reboot, but I did use the tools while watching the task manager.

When I click a tool the perfomance jumps from almost nothing to between 58 & 72% and then when the tool finally loads, it goes back down again. It does this for all the tools. Click tool, process jumps, tool loads, process goes back down.

So, what does that mean? I am running a duel core also.